Rita Marie Cimini

The act of painting is a vehicle I use to search for the unknown. When I paint I am exploring for a way to express the inner life which cannot be expressed in words. Through the search, that is the process of painting, the image that cannot be named at the outset, emerges. The process of making art is a process of intuition working within a disciplined framework. I do not begin with an image I want to re-create. I begin with an impulse, energy, or excitement generated by an event, thought, or an experience. The first brush stroke generates the next brush stroke. One color suggests the next. The image emerges as I work; the painting leads me to where it is going. My most recent work is characterized by interplay of sometimes translucent, sometimes solid layers of brilliant color, which create shapes above a geometric infrastructure. The color acts simultaneously as atmosphere and object. Energy and tension is generated between the surface reaffirmation and movement into deeper space between lush and austere colorings.